Silence
by writergirl2003
Summary: Silence says more than words ever could.


I've become obsessed with this song recently, it's called The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Just wanted to write something about it.

* * *

_Hello darkness, my old friend,  
I've come to talk with you again,  
Because a vision softly creeping,  
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,  
And the vision that was planted in my brain  
Still rema__ins  
Within the sound of silence_

She didn't pretend to be a stranger to neglect. She'd grown up surrounded by it, and had, in fact, become quite accustomed to the idea that she had no place in the world. Even as a child, when other little girls wanted to be princesses, nurses, entire worlds and beautiful fantasies, she had known better. She would have liked to blame it all on her mother; would have liked to say that Velma Von Tussle was the reason she'd never had enough spirit to fight her way out of a paper bag. However, she knew that wasn't true. Her mother _had_ wanted things for her, albeit different things than what Amber herself had wanted. Although, she assumed it no longer mattered, anyway. Amber hadn't spoken to, much less argued with, her mother for over four years now. She'd moved out as soon as she'd become legal, and had moved in with Corny. They had been screwing around behind everyone's backs, anyway. It was the only logical thing to do.

That had gone over well, for a few months. They had continued their passionate love-making every night. He'd come home from the studio, push her against a wall and they'd erupt into a deafening pace that left him groaning into her ear, and left her voice broken from crying out for him. Then, she'd collapse against his chest and he'd hold her, no noises coming from either of them, save their unsteady breaths as they struggled to regain their composure. They could lay there for hours, neither of them saying a word, both knowing it was more than either of them could ever have said.

That was when Amber had enjoyed the silence between them.

_  
__And no one dare  
Disturb the sound of silence_

And then one day, it had come to an abrupt halt. He still came home from the studio every afternoon, but he didn't push her against the wall, insane with passion. He didn't let his arms snake around her waist, didn't even try to pretend he wanted to, for her sake. She would watch him with her crystal blue eyes as she sat across from him at the dinner table. Every day, she hoped it would be different, and he would come home, and be the same person he'd been before this heavy, awkward silence had fallen over their relationship. And yet, every day, the meals grew colder, as they sat across the table from each other and didn't eat. The bed got bigger, as they lay beside each other every night, and didn't touch. The shower got colder, because she spent more time in it every morning, letting herself cry into the steady stream, because it was the only safe place to do so.

She had tried to confront him about it, his sudden change, once. The look he'd given her as the bitter words had left her mouth told her that she was fighting a losing battle. And yet, she stayed, because it was the only thing she could do. She stayed through four years, twenty-two cancelled dinner reservations, and thirty-eight nights alone in bed. She stayed through two Christmas Eves, on which he never came home, and she stayed through the miscarriage she'd never told him about, because why should she have? She stayed through a thousand nights wishing that tonight would be _the _night that he would give her a ring; ask her to become his wife. Still, after all those years, there was nothing. A superficial smile between them as he hurried to work in the morning, and occasionally an awkward peck on the cheek before they turned the lights out in the bedroom. Though, recently, even that hadn't been an issue. She missed the man he had been, the girl she had been, and the passion that had once left her weak in the knees.

Still, she remained silent, and let herself believe things would get better for them. After all, living a lie was better than swallowing the bitter pill called truth.

_Fools said I, you do not know  
Silence like a cancer grows_

So, she continued to be the doting girlfriend, or whatever the hell she was. The roommate who had once been more, and had been reduced to nothing but a pathetic trophy that was left to collect dust on the shelf. She continued to fix the meals that he didn't eat, continued to make the bed that he never slept in. And every day, it got a little bit easier, because she had begun to block herself from it. She could look at him, and pretend that the blush in his cheeks was because of her. She could listen to him whistle as he shut the door of the apartment behind him, to go wherever he went when he wasn't with her, and she could pretend that song was for her. She could convince herself that, in his heart, he still wanted her.

When she decided to surprise him at the studio one afternoon, though she wasn't completely sure why, she automatically knew something was off. She pushed herself against the door of his dressing room, and heard the soft groans that she remembered all too well. Though she knew she shouldn't have, she cracked the door open, and peered inside. His naked hips thrust against those of the woman's beneath him, his head dipped low to whisper dirty things into her ear as he worked himself inside of her. Her cries were loud, and though he didn't say a word, his groans began to echo in her mind. Those cries that had once been for her; they were for someone else now; had been for years. God only knew how many other women.

She swallowed hard, listening to the shallow, unsteady breathing that reverberated between them. As quiet as she'd been for years, she slipped the door shut and pressed her body against it, listening as the voices in the room became louder.

Suddenly, she wished for the silence again.

_And the sign said, the words of the prophets  
Are written on the __subway walls  
And tenement halls  
And whispered in the sounds of silence_


End file.
